proxy_handler = urllib2.ProxyHandler({'http': 'http://' + item})
    opener = urllib2.build_opener(proxy_handler)

    post_key = str(time.time()).replace('.', '-')
    post_value = str(time.time()).replace('.', '-')
    post_data = urllib.urlencode({post_key: post_value})

    start_time = time.time()
    try:
        data = opener.open(settings.PROXY_CHECK_URL, post_data).read(3000)
    except Exception, ex:
        try:
            reason = unicode(ex).encode('utf-8')
        except Exception:
            reason = 'Could not parse error'
        return {'type': PROXY_BAD, 'proxy': item, 'reason': reason}
    else:
        timeout = '%.2f' % (time.time() - start_time)